


rain will fall again on your smooth pavement, a light rain like a breath or a step

by oldtune



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 14:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17123267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldtune/pseuds/oldtune
Summary: the bar is closed for the night. in the morning it will open.





	rain will fall again on your smooth pavement, a light rain like a breath or a step

.

* * *

 

> ❝The breeze and the dawn
> 
> will flourish again
> 
> when you return,
> 
> as if beneath your step.
> 
> Between flowers and sills
> 
> the cats will know.❞
> 
> **\- The Cats Will Know**

* * *

The King sends him a letter.

It comes late, after the news sweeps through the town, that the barrier is broken and they're all free. Grillby runs his fingers over the heavy paper, cream-colored and smooth to the touch. The wax seal gleams as his fingers come close, just barely dripping as it threatens to melt. He doesn't open the letter. Instead, he sets it aside on his desk and leaves it behind. It's near opening time at the bar and he has a feeling it will be a very long night.

It is.

His regular patrons crowd in, followed by their newly found family members, followed by nearly the entire town. Miss Bunny and her sister find seats near the corner where it's quieter, with their cousin Burr and her older brother Bleu. The royal guardsmen set several tables together and crowd in. He sees Sans, blipping in and out on occasion, looking lighter than he has in years.

It's a good night and the bar is so full of good cheer that he almost doesn't dread the cleanup. His own flames crackle a bit louder than usual, shifting through colors, from the usual bright flickering orange to a much sunnier yellow. Even later – when the bar has been closed and the last of the patrons slowly trickle out, still buoyed by happiness – his glow is bright enough that he doesn't really need the lights.

He keeps them on anyways, until he's done setting the place to rights.

When everything is done, tables polished, bar counter gleaming deep brown and the tall glasses lined neatly, Grillby locks the doors and flicks off the lights. He looks over the bar, lit only by his own fire and stands very still, barely breathing. The quiet settles somewhere deep in his chest.

Tomorrow, he'll begin packing up.

The King and Queen have already made contact though it remains to be seen what kind of response they gained. He wouldn't know. But he does want to see the surface again. Maybe he'll expand.  _Or_ , he thinks, one hand fisting tightly against his chest,  _retire_. He's tired. Maybe it would help if he could rest. Do nothing for a little while.

Grillby shakes his head, scattering his thoughts with a sigh. He doesn't have time for this now. Morning will come soon enough and he needs the rest. But it's a restless sleep that night and it leaves him crackling and irritated the next morning, with headache brewing at his temples. The letter catches his eye as he passes it and he leaves it there, still unopened.

Instead, he begins the slow methodical process of packing his life away.

Most of it is the bar itself, tall glasses wrapped carefully and put away into sturdy boxes, tables stacked atop one another and pushed to one side. His own personal items are far in between, but he handles them very carefully, among them a delicate stained-glass lamp and his desk. He can hear the bustle of the town even from his room as Snowdin gathers up and prepares to move as well.

It's a rush of activity and he waits until it dies down, offering his help to those who need it but unwilling to throw himself into the bustle and move as well. So by the time he's ready to go, Snowdin resembles nothing so much as a ghost town. He walks through it for a time, footsteps crunching in the pristine snow and white clouds billowing out with every breath.

He closes his eyes and wonders for a moment if he will be able to find peace like this on the surface. The wind doesn't answer him, but it blows the snow around him into small flurries and high waves. The pale light makes them glimmer with a color somewhere between silver and blue. He supposes that's answer enough. He moves out the next day.

The sun is much, much warmer than he remembered it to be.

The air is bright and clear, free from the heavy weight of magic, the thickness of centuries under the same prison. He's glowing with enough firelight that he could double as a beacon so he moves deeper into the mountain's forests and finds a place to sit. He watches the sky for hours, unmoving, breath caught in his chest.

By the time the stars come out he's made a makeshift camp, surrounded by the things he carried out of the underground. The boxes make terrible pillows, so he only leans against them, captivated by the twinkling stars studded into the blue-black sky. It isn't until the sky lightens that his eyes begin to droop as the exhaustion finally catches up to him. He falls asleep with a smile curling across his face.

It's the sound of chirping birds that startles him awake, flames flaring to life at his hands as he goes from half-asleep to suddenly and painfully aware in the span of seconds. Everything hits him at once, and it takes for him to register the slow rising sun and the endless calm of the green forest. It makes it easier for him to breathe, the realization that there is no one around him but the birds carrying on their song unbothered and the occasional woodland creature come to investigate. Grillby sits down heavily and sighs, head in his hands. The surface seems to have brought up more memories than he bargained for.

Not all of it bad though. It's an old memory and a faded one that leads him straight to the empty cabin nestled within a vast grove of trees. His breath catches at the sight and he just barely stops himself from running towards it. The wards still rise at his presence, rusty and shivering with old magic. He renews them right then and there, fire spilling from his hands to sink into the old wood. It welcomes his magic, drawing it in and letting it flow through the entirety of the small property.

The door swings easily on its hinges as he opens it and he looks for a moment at the emptiness of a place that had once been a refuge, and a home. It's with the scent of deep forest filling his chest and the easy swiftness of familiar magic coursing through his body that he thinks, decides, that he can make it one again.

Ironically, moving in is once again more difficult than moving out. With his boxes and small amount of furniture stacked carefully under the shade of nearby trees, Grilly rolls up his sleeves and sets to work. Horrible, grueling water-involving work. It reminds him of cleaning his bar, the first time he'd walked in, all the wooden floors dull and dirty, the windows in need of a good wiping.

It's nearly the same, except this time he has the sunlight to dry things for him and the river nearby to pull water from. It takes him the better half of the next week to make everything shine like new, the floorboards butter gold and gleaming, the windows flung open and wiped clean, every piece of cloth hung neatly from the clothing lines he'd set up and billowing in the wind. It smells like pine and the sweet spice of gathered herbs when he's done with it.

Grillby lies down, flat on his back against the floor and the wind whispers against him softly. Everything smells like new beginnings. He starts moving in, boxes laid on the floor and unpacked with care, cupboards filled and labelled this time, so he'll never spoon salt into his coffee again. He places his desk in a corner with a window just nearby, so the light falls against it. By the time night falls he's sitting in bed with a cup of tea steaming gently in his hands and sleep pulling his flames down low and content. It's a good tired this time.

He sleeps well.

The sunlight greets him in the morning with full force and he rolls over in bed with a half-groan. Squinting blearily at the windows with as much disdain as he can muster does not make the sun set in shame. Instead it burns the sleep right out of his body and he has to haul himself out of bed to get ready for the day. The cabin is still devoid of furniture besides his desk in the living room and his bed but the first thing he puts on the list is curtains.

It's a long walk down the mountain but Grillby doesn't mind. Time enough to clear his mind and get his thoughts into order so he doesn't panic when he steps into the town. It's a lot…smaller than he imagined. He veers right into the first store he sees and comes face to face with a very short human, gray hair framing her face and sudden smile lined with wrinkles.

"Well hello there young man," she says, voice wispy but strong. "New to town, aren't you?"

It's been  _years_  since anyone's called him a young anything that the words startle straight out of his mouth and into open air.

"Yes ma'am," he says. "I'm looking for…curtains."

"Well," she says, clapping her hands together and resting them on her hips. "I'm sure we've got something around here for you."

And then she pulls him gently by the hand into the store, seemingly amused with his reticence.

The store smells like vanilla tea and nutmegs, shelves lined with porcelain tea sets and wooden figurines. Elsewhere he spies carpet in deep rich colors, rolled tight and set against the wall. Wooden rocking chairs with delicate carvings along the sides, sway very slightly as they pass them by, the shopkeep speaking with great enthusiasm about the town.

It's a Grillby with an armful of curtains, an appointment for tea the next day and entirely more information than he bargained for that leaves the shop. He stops by an open grocer as well and leaves with several bags of food that he cannot recall paying for. The grocer's sly smile and easy welcome remains in his memory as he puts the food away into the cupboards and makes himself a quick meal. What a strange town. It reminds him somewhat of the olden days, before the war began.

He goes back for tea the next day. And several days after. He acquires perhaps more food than he needs but pays it back by cooking with it and he presents the food with grin playing at the corners of his mouth to Wilma the shopkeep who swears she'll furnish his entire home if only he gives her the recipe. The grocer he repays by running errands across town to the owner of a flowershop whose usual delivery man has sprained an ankle. It's an easy system and a quiet, tight-knit town.

Grillby finds it easier to wake up in the mornings, the only tiredness in his body that of a good day's work. He starts a herb garden and attempts to plant tomatoes. He fills his house slowly but surely, with a comfortable low table and set of couches that have a haphazardly knit blanket thrown over the top.

Small knick-knacks on his study and slowly building collection of books. Time passes in quiet, easy moments and one time he laughs so hard the flames at the top of his head sputter and shake. He learns the townspeople's names and at some point, ends up watching Wilma's grandchildren and their friends who are both tiny and terrifying.

And then he finds the bar.

It's a large place near the center of town, wide and empty and almost eerily quiet. He passes by it several times and finds it nothing but empty and silent, but the townspeople say there is wailing there at night. They tell him it was an old bar, shut down ages ago and the only reason it's still standing is that the townspeople are afraid whatever's in there won't like it getting destroyed.

Grillby goes in one afternoon and the door creaks when he opens it. It's dusty and quiet. His footsteps echo as he walks in and stands there, in the middle of the wide empty floor. He's good at fixing things, he thinks. He could make something out of this.

And then a shrieking wail pierces the night and he freezes in place as a blur shoots out of the shadows straight at him. He scoops it up on instinct and finds his arms full of hissing, spitting cat.

"Ah," he says, as he narrowly dodges a set of sharp claws to the face. "…you were not what I was expecting."

The cat emits a horrible yowling noise and goes for his neck.

He takes it home, of course.

An hour later finds him and the cat staring across from each other at the tables. Water sizzles against his arms as he holds out the towel. The cat drips belligerently.

"…you want do be dry, don't you?" he says, wiggling the warm towel enticingly.

The cat attempts to stalk over but can't quite manage it. It's a small thing, fuzzy and stumbling over its own paws. If he hadn't pried it off his face just moments before he would have assumed it harmless. As it is, he keeps a sharp eye on the claws but the cat holds still and lets him dry it off.

He gives it food then watches it huddle in the corner of the couch after snatching the towel from his hands. It watches him with one wary eye even as he leaves to go to bed. In the morning it's still there. It doesn't let him pet it, but it does claw its way onto his shoulder and settle there with a haughty sniff. It stays there through the hour he spends getting advice for cat-keeping and endures the cooing and attempts at patting with slight snaps of its teeth.

Through the next several days they establish a rapport. The cat turns out to be a lady and he refrains from naming her Ash and names her Soot instead, after the way her fur gleams gray and her eyes silver. She continues to climb up his shoulder each morning but now she curls her head under his chin and purrs loudly while he works. She watches the flicker of his flames with undisguised curiosity and tucks herself under the blankets for every nap she takes.

Grillby works on the bar in increments.

Some days he stands behind the counter and stares down at it until Soot crawls under his hands and demands attention. He moves things in, the glasses and tables, barstools and booths. For days the bar was full of the excitable noise of many people coming together for one thing and in one afternoon they had set the whole thing up. The sign above the bar reads  ** _Grillby's_**  in neat, flowing letters courtesy of Wilma.

But he doesn't open. Not yet.

Then things go missing. Nothing too important, random items of clothing, the smooth linen he uses to polish the glass, bits and bobs from his apartment. It isn't until he sees Soot with the tail end of pillow clamped in her jaws, merrily making her way under the counter that it clicks. He kneels down and watches her arrange her items carefully, then plop over them and purr when he sees her.

"…you troublemaker," he murmurs and rubs her head. "I suppose we'd better open soon then, now that you've made yourself comfortable."

It's easier than he thinks.

The signs for the grand opening are hung up, flyers handed out.

Grillby opens the bar at his usual time and the people flood in. Golden light flickers, spilling outside each time someone opens the door to come inside. The jukebox plays slow and east in the background. He catches sight of a wide grin and red feathers, before someone settles down on the barstools in front of him and laughs, loud and giddy.

"I'll have the usual," he says.

In the corner, Wilma is enthusiastically petting a very large dog. A skeleton blips in and out at the corners of his eyes and he can see Soot's ears perk up every time he appears. A bunny and her sharp-toothed companion have taken up a booth and are striking up a conversation with some of the townspeople. Something in Grillby's chest bubbles up bright and hot, fizzing through his entire body. A smile curls up at the corners of his mouth and stays there.

"…coming right up."


End file.
